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Tubeworker

Tubeworker: a platform for rank-and-file London Underground workers, telling you what the bosses and bureaucrats won't. Tubeworker reports on workplace issues, puts forward strategies that we think will help workers win, and supports militant, democratic trade unionism. It promotes unity and challenges inequality.

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Almost exactly a year on from last year's fire in an escalator machine room, Euston station has had another reminder of the constant risks to safety and need for staff on the Underground.

This most recent fire was in the air vents. A huge team of fire fighters was needed to tackle it. It was impossible for the fire brigade to say what initially caused it, as they said something can so easily get into the air vents. This shows that, for all management's confidence about keeping risks to a minimum, the risks can never be eliminated.

There has been a sudden and myseterious change to Section 4.2 of every Section 12 station's Emergency Plan. That's the clause that tells you your minimum staffing numbers, below which you can not open the station.

It used to specify how many of each grade eg. 1 Supervisor, 1 Station Assistant (Control Rooms), 3 CSAs. Now - with the exception of Supervisors, who have to be there by law - the specific grades have been dropped. So the above example would now read 1 Supervisor, 4 other staff.

We all know that a station is either Section 12 or not. It can't be Section 12 in parts, not in other parts. If any part of it is sub-surface, then the whole station is covered by the Section 12 regulations, brought in after the King's Cross fire to prevent, detect and suppress fire in sub-surface railway stations.

It's OK, everyone. Calm down. King's Cross is a 'low-risk' station. We know this because London Underground Ltd says so.

Sure, lots of people died in a fire there in the 1987. And some more people died between Kings Cross and Russell Square a year ago today. Oh yeah, and it's one of the busiest railway stations in London and maybe even the world. But hey.

LONDON UNDERGROUND has downgraded its own fire-safety regime, despite fierce opposition from its own principal fire engineer and union safety reps, the Tube's biggest union reveals today.

Changes imposed by LUL have relegated fire-safety to become an adjunct of general health and safety policy, done away with the existing fire inspection programme and even abolished the post of specialist fire-safety advisor, RMT says.

The government is once again trying to water down our fire safety regulations.

The 'Section 12' regulations came into force in 1989 in the wake of the King's Cross fire two years previously. They include: minimum staffing levels; staff training requirements; detection, compartmentation and suppression; means of escape; and several other crucial laws.

As regular readers will know, the government has been trying its hand at abolishing Section 12. As all Tube workers will know - but some earwigging readers may not - Section 12 is the name we give to the Fire Precautions (Sub-Surface Railway Stations) Regulations 1989. That's the law introduced in the wake of the death of 30+ people in the 1987 Kings Cross fire, and which includes: minimum staffing levels, means of escape, staff training standards, means of detecting, containing and warning of fire, and more besides.